


Author Unknown

by AlwaysARose53 (ChelleBee53)



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Humor, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25923499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChelleBee53/pseuds/AlwaysARose53
Summary: Three beings from another galaxy discover an amazing piece of writing. But who is the author?





	Author Unknown

**The three of them were the first, the very first beings from their galaxy to arrive on Earth.**

**Or were they?**

**The sheet of paper that had drifted over to them, the sheet of paper covered with writing in their planet's beautiful squiggly, wavy alphabet, seemed to prove otherwise.**

**They started to scan the paper, but soon they found themselves reading more slowly, more carefully, more thoughtfully.**

**It was the most amazing, incredible, wonderful story they had ever read. And yet, there was no signature, nothing at all to indicate who the author might be.**

**They knew, without saying it out loud, that all they had to do was to destroy the paper, and let everyone believe that they _were_ , as all had thought they would be, the first beings from their galaxy to visit Earth. **

**But that would mean the loss of a story which should be preserved forever.  
"And," they said together, as if their thoughts had been spoken, "the loss of our integrity."**

**Soon after they returned to their home planet, the story was printed in the leading fiction magazine, with their names listed as the finders. It was to become the most popular story every published, not only on that planet, not only in that galaxy, but everywhere. No anthology of prose published thereafter would be considered complete without it.**

**Years, decades, centuries, millennia went by, and the story was still being reprinted, always with the words, "Author Unknown" either at the beginning or at the end.**

**Nobody ever knew that the markings on the original sheet of paper had actually been the crayoned scribblings of a 21st century terrestrial baby.**


End file.
